00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome to episode 129 of a life and ruins podcast where we investigate the careers of those living a life in ruins I amm your host Connor Johnn and I am joined by my co-host David Howe for these week's episode. We are joined by Matt Stern who is an archeologist and journalist and also wears a bunch of other different hats. That he'll explain as we go through this interview. Um Matt how are you doing on this lovely fall day. 00:23.71 Matt Stirn Doing great I'm currently sitting at our ranch up in Jackson Wyoming watching the leaves turn colors and we actually just had 2 bears walk through our yard about 15 minutes ago so I apologize if there's any unwarranted bear distractions during the podcast. 00:35.43 Jesus of Nayarit That sounds like a life sure man safety First you do what you got to do? Um, yeah, be great to have you on like I think you're the first. 00:41.21 archpodnet We'll we'll bear with you if it happens. 00:43.68 Matt Stirn Victim. 00:50.39 Jesus of Nayarit Journalist We've had or like someone that's taken that kind of alternative career path in anthropology. So be really good to you know, get the audience familiar with that. But you guys seem to go way back right. 01:00.30 Matt Stirn Um, yeah, and we do yeah Conor and I were just trying to figure out the last time we saw each other and I know the first time we met was actually about ten years ago um I was ah I met Conor on his field school in in the middle of nowhere. I guess that describes most to Wyoming but in the middle of the the Shirley Basin of of Wyoming. Um, and we've we've kept in touch ever since I think maybe Connor when's last time we actually saw each other was probably an essay right. 01:17.47 Jesus of Nayarit Flip it. So. 01:25.46 archpodnet Yeah I was thinking either dc s a or Orlando essay because I don't know if I saw you guys at Albuquerque. 01:31.51 Matt Stirn I think I think it was a I think Orlando but um, but yeah Connor and I conor and I go way back and in David and I also have a history but not not quite as long. 01:35.30 Jesus of Nayarit So hoof. 01:40.42 archpodnet Have. 01:40.88 Jesus of Nayarit Yeah I think we had met once at a talk that you gave in Wyoming and then yeah this summer I'd like sat next to you at lunch eating a sandwich and we we chatted. Yeah. 01:46.62 Matt Stirn Um, okay. 01:54.13 Matt Stirn And I got to I got to hang out with David at the laprell mammoth excavation for for a couple days this summer which was incredible I am yeah um I was there on assignment for archeology magazine. Um, they they were really excited about the the work that's being done there and. 01:59.40 Jesus of Nayarit Which you're currently working on something with that right. 01:59.50 archpodnet Yeah. 02:11.22 Matt Stirn Gave me an excuse to finally get to see it I've been wanting to go visit and that dig for about three or four years now um but yeah I actually just fired off the the text for that article a few days ago and it should be out sometime this winter. 02:15.19 Jesus of Nayarit Oh wow. 02:24.87 Jesus of Nayarit Cool. Yeah, this was the year to to come I think ah it was all set up good good stuff 02:27.77 archpodnet Sounds like you yeah sounds like you found a bunch of stuff and whatnot. But yeah, so you were you were the the ta on my field school the the person that I was looking up to on seeing how I can. How. And archeology career can go and it was it was exciting I really enjoyed having you there just your experience with stuff that we are obviously going to talk about um as we go further into the podcast. But so what was kind of your first experience with like archeology and anthropology growing up. 03:05.30 Matt Stirn Yeah, well that that actually goes way back. Um, so my my first tickle with professional archeology happened when I was actually 12 or thirteen years old um and it's never really stopped since then but I was I was in middle school 6 or seventh grade and. The office of the wyoming state archaeologist was excavating a Paleoindian ah a folsom site not too far from our middle school and I didn't know much about archeology. But I knew there was a ah dig going on there and I thought I'd be neat to see it and so the following week. My parents were actually. A friend's birthday party at the cowboy bar and in downtown Jackson and lo and behold. They met the group of archeologists who were working there and the conversation basically turned into we have a kid who likes digging holes which the archaeologists responded with what we like digging holes and so they said well bring your kid down. Um, and so I got permission to leave school for 2 hours to go volunteer on this archaeological site and um, 2 2 archeologists there Dan Aiken and and Richard Adams um invited me into their one by 1 unit and ah 2 hours of volunteering almost immediately turned into two weeks of working on what was the game Creek Excavation and I just immediately fell in love with it like I just felt so natural and and was just amazing to be excavating alongside professionals when I was twelve years old um but but. 04:32.67 Matt Stirn Needless to say I was immediately hooked and so 1 thing led to another and and I kept in touch with with rich who's now a ph d Dr Rich Adams and just finished teaching at the University Of Wyoming but I kept in touch with him over the years and when I was in college a freshman davidson college I just sent him an email. Saying I was interested in pursuing archaeology throughout my degrees and he responded well this is a great time. You got in touch with us because we're about to start ah a massive high altitude project in the wind river range and he invited me to come out the the year after and the rest is history. Um, years later this was 2000 7 I think when I first joined him and and we still work together today. 05:16.50 Jesus of Nayarit That's awesome man. Um for a kid to get thrown into archaeology I think Wyoming is probably the most intense place you could. You could go you lucked out. 05:26.20 Matt Stirn Yeah I was I remember just being around all the I mean yeah, not now it. So I mean we do it every summer it's it's we all know what working on an excavation is like but for for somebody who'd never seen that especially being preteen. It was pretty shocking. 05:39.41 Jesus of Nayarit Um, yeah. 05:42.52 Matt Stirn To be around a group of archaeologists on an excavation. 05:45.94 archpodnet Yeah, and but and you've also had and this is I think something you told or we had learned about you during the field school is you kind of almost did the other extreme of archeology where you have like high desert you know, ah hot. 06:02.67 archpodnet All that kind of stuff but you also did archeology with Dr Robert Ballard and the black sea which is like a good. 06:07.81 Matt Stirn I did yeah um and so this was yeah phenomenal. Yeah, we can call I've always wanted to do ah like a conference presentation called like from the bottom to the top like underwater archeology to outpine archeology. Um, but yeah, when I was in high school. We. I was invited to go on ah at a six weeks expedition to the black sea and so Bob Ballard has has been ah a ranch guest. My family runs a dude ranch in Jackson which is basically a a hotel where people come to play cowboy for a week and for years and years and years. Um Bob Ballard and his family have have visited and. I got to know him in his research and when I was a freshman in high school out of the blue. Basically it was like a 3 am m phone call in the middle a winner that we answered because usually it's bad news as somebody calls it 3 am m in the middle of winter but we answered it and and basically Bob said his map there I'm sure I got on the phones and you want to come to the black sea next summer yes and so I ended up missing a lot of school and flew to crete where we steamed up to the black sea and the goal of this expedition was to try and disprove the theory that ancient mariners only hugged the coast. So if you talk about Greek Greek and Roman Trade a lot of historians say that they hug the coast because of big storms and so we had this our Bob had this theory well that that was hogwash they were mariners they they were traders they wanted to get from point a to point b as fast as they could so they just probably drew a line across the middle of the sea and and went as fast as they could and so that's where we looked and. 07:40.90 Matt Stirn I was on a research vessel for six weeks before anything even got started. We got arrested and impounded by the ukrainians um, we were thrown into the the russian black sea naval base in in Crimea we were actually the first american ship to be there since world war ii and um it it took ah condoles or like foam fault. Phone call from condoleesa rice to get us out and so this was it was a wild experience but we ended up finding some wonderful things because the the bottom of the black sea has no oxygen and um because of that oh sorry. 08:10.39 Jesus of Nayarit What what year was that if you don't want me, ask them what year was that must have been 2006 okay 08:16.78 Matt Stirn This was back in 2006? Um, and and so because the the bottom of the black sea has no oxygen anything organic that sinks into it doesn't decompose and so we found Roman Byzantine medieval shipwrecks that still had their sails and their rigging and um. Everything attached to it is incredible and so yeah I got my first taste of Wyoming archeology when I was 12 but I got my first taste of international archeology when I was a freshman in college and basically after that I knew I knew this was it for me I mean it was it would to me seem one of the most incredible ways to not just see the world but to have a unique way to. 08:34.67 Jesus of Nayarit That's nut. 08:54.32 Matt Stirn Really learn about a place because when you go there as an archeologist like you have to study everything that goes into a town. Both ancient and modern day and the more I had opportunities to do that I just realized it was such an incredible way to to see and learn about the world. 09:09.65 archpodnet And when it's a way to get like arrested and if it showed up on your record. It doesn't look as bad. You know. 09:13.75 Matt Stirn Um, yeah and I know it makes for a great like 2 truth and a lie like never been arrested by russians. 09:24.76 archpodnet Ah I. 09:27.19 Jesus of Nayarit Did you want to go sorry at oh. 09:30.37 Matt Stirn Um, no. 09:30.72 archpodnet And no this can I was going to say okay so you have these experiences kind of in your your formative years. Um is that kind of what pushed you obviously and then working with rich when you were at Davidson College is that's what kind of pushed you into the at least doing part of at least doing the academic. 09:48.91 Matt Stirn Yeah, absolutely um I knew I knew this is what I what I wanted to do and at the time. Um I think as many students do like I didn't know what I wanted to to really focus on because I had these amazing as you said formative experiences both in the old world. But also here in in North America 09:48.92 archpodnet Beginnings to archeology and. 10:06.15 Matt Stirn Um, and so but as I was kind of going into college I decided to to try and do both as much as I could and so I I studied both classical archeology and anthropology at the same time. Um during the summers going into the the wind river range with with Dr Adams with rich. 10:25.52 Matt Stirn And that was a really magical time to be doing mountain archeology because for the most part other than a few projects like David Huszt Thomas did it Nevada and and Bob Betenger um and and Jim Benedit in Colorado but for the most part, not a lot of work. Even in in 2007 had been done in the mountains especially in Wyoming and so we kind of had this amazing moment to be faced with this frontier in in north american archeology that like that never happens. Um and so is this really like romantic and magical time to be going up and serving these vast. Landscapes that hadn't really been looked at before and kind of the opportunity to do that too was again, just kind of another twist of the knife. That's like how buddy you're you're gonna be doing this the rest of your life. 11:13.14 Jesus of Nayarit But what's um, the preservation like up there like is stuff just laying on the surface or is it kind of glaciated. 11:20.21 Matt Stirn Yeah, working it it how you find archeological remains preserved in the mountains is like anywhere. It's different from mountain range to mountain range. Um, in the the winds. It's it's a lot of granite and so it's highly acidic soil and so anything organic. For the most part doesn't preserve wood does a little bit like we would find um what we call lodge pads which are basically the equivalent of a tent pad if you camp a lot. They were circular platforms cut out into the the hillside where where wooden structures like wiki ups would have been made and if we found 5 or more of them. We called it a village and the the largest one that. 11:53.10 Jesus of Nayarit Wow. 11:56.36 Matt Stirn Rich introduced me to was highrise village which had over eighty of these these cut and filleded lodge pads and so in them mostly Lithic artifacts. Um, occasionally, we'd find bone. Um, but something else we we've been doing more recently in in other mountain ranges is ice patch archeology looking for organic material. That's been preserved in in. Ah, permanent snowfields and the preservation there is astronomical, um, everything from adolatle shafts to baskets to moccasins to things you just never get to find in in Wyoming. 12:27.16 Jesus of Nayarit Wow. 12:29.55 archpodnet So yeah I know Dr Kelly found like a ah bow is what something that he. 12:36.14 Matt Stirn Yeah, he did that was actually um I called that my worst birthday present because we went on our first ice patch archeology project in the teton range and we were so thrilled because we found a little whittled piece of wood about the size of my thumb that we we dated to about fifteen hundred years ago and we came back just on cloud nine like oh we did it our first ice patch. We found an actual artifact. The first person I called and texted was Bob um Dr. Kelly and he had gotten back from a similar trip and his response was and this was on my birthday called him I don't know why I remember that but. I called him so we found this thing and he goes oh yeah's nice. We found 2 bows on our eyes patch. Wow um, not a lot of competition but that one that one got me. But um, but yeah I mean it's it's interesting and it's kind of one of those things that were. 13:19.18 Jesus of Nayarit That's a Bob statement. 13:26.84 Matt Stirn We're trying to do as much of it as we can, um, especially in the greater yellowstone ecosystem because especially the last two years where we're just seeing all that snow disappear at at Rapid rates and as soon as it does those organic artifacts kind of just dissolve once they become unpreserved. 13:41.94 archpodnet Yeah, and so and like that like Matt said a lot of like what we see in Wyoming is like those stone circles but you can kind of see those preserved in these alpine environments as well. Because yeah, like you said nothing else comes out or which. Or soapstone or you know which you found a couple couple hard facts with and which has been just. 14:01.32 Matt Stirn Um, yeah, just a few um and so yeah, soapstone um, is ah it's a basically talc. It's ah is a super soft rock that um the the mountain shoshone in northwest of Wyoming carved bowls out of um, but we actually found a few I think we've maybe found one on the field school. So. Something that's wild about this mountain archeology too is that it um, it's basically a wilderness expedition with a scientific theme like we go into really remote parts of the mountains we have to pack in horses we have to set up a base camp and so when when we had Connor when Connor and I first met in the field school. We had this wild hair idea. Hey, let's take. 30 field school students to one of these remote sites and we did it and it was it was incredible. We got to show. Um I mean very few field school students ever get to go up to the winds much less a site like high-rise village but I think we did find a couple of these so the soapstone bowls while we were there. 14:53.88 archpodnet Yeah, it was truly like a formative experience because like you said it's It's an expedition. It's not just camping outside of dewboys or you know where you can drive into town and and get a beer later in the day you know this that really felt felt like you were going out onto the frontier trying to find. Um, new things and Highrise is interesting because it's it's called Highrise because it's like was it like 10 stories from like the lowest um Pad or like. 15:23.41 Matt Stirn Yeah, it's it's wildly steep. It's It's like the equivalent of a double blue or black Diamond Ski Run and so shuttling gear up and down the thing while excavating is probably the best shape any of us have ever been in our entire life. 15:34.70 Jesus of Nayarit Oh my god right? you would have to like well one a field school is kind of designed to weed out people who don't want to do archeology. So I can't imagine having to hike and trek up into the winds with screens and shovels was. Yeah, you had to be tough for that 1. 15:53.00 Matt Stirn Yeah people I think after that trip either decided this is what they're going to do or never ever again. 15:58.50 Jesus of Nayarit So. 16:01.20 archpodnet I Think the quote was ah I didn't sign up for mountain climbing school. But now yeah yeah, absolutely. 16:05.40 Matt Stirn Um, but I'm sure they still talk about it that and that's but we all. 16:09.85 Jesus of Nayarit Yeah thing you told me about your fields school Conor but I didn't realize it was that intense I'm looking at pictures of highrise village right now too and that is pretty impressive. There's that many people living up there high altitude indeted. 16:23.48 Matt Stirn Yeah, it's a wild site and in every one of those lodge pads that that we would excavate and there was a whole team whole team of us who did I was just lucky enough to be involved. Um, we would find something like 20 or 30000 artifacts per lodge pad it was it was just insane. Um, what was left up there. 16:37.41 Jesus of Nayarit Um, what are what are they eating up there like a goat or is it or a sheep I said. 16:45.25 Matt Stirn Yeah we'd find sheep so recently Rebecca and I we hadn't been in in the winds for a while but my my wife and co-project director and I returned with with rich a couple years ago and we collected um, soapstone bowls and and did residue analysis on them. And also pottery and groundstone from villages. Not high-rise but other villages that we found um and everything from roots and tubers to marmot to beaver to bear moose even some bison and in bighorn sheep. So basically everything that we see up there today. They were. 17:17.41 Jesus of Nayarit Cool. 17:17.58 Matt Stirn They were cooking. 17:18.67 archpodnet Yeah, and and as as you've studied pine nuts as well and I think that's a good. Yeah. 17:25.34 Matt Stirn Yeah, Absolutely yeah, well I'm sure we'll get to that in a little bit but absolutely um, Pine Pine nuts were crucial. Um, one of the the the faestt food sources available to to prehistored people up there and and almost every artifact we have where. Just covered in in Pine Nut Residue and and a lot of these villages are are located amongst white Bark Pine stands. 17:44.82 Jesus of Nayarit Um, I think that's a great spot to end it because I'd love to get more into that because I remember Connor telling me pine nuts were such a big thing up there. So yeah, I'd love to hear more.